Freelance and local illustrator Kerrie Mc Neill of Kerrieillustrates.com came to Sullivan to share her industry experience and digital illustration tips with current pupils from yr12, yr13 & yr14. Kerrie creates vibrant, quirky illustrations that ‘add a sense of cheerfulness and excitement’ for the purchaser. She works in areas spanning branding, editorial, packaging, and Licenced based work with outlets like ‘Etsy’, ‘Not on the High Street’, The ‘National Trust’ and ‘Tesco’ Cards.
An afternoon session was arranged where Kerrie had a question-and-answer session with some of our exam age budding artists. An integral part of the current CCEA GCSE Art & Design syllabus requires pupils to ‘Investigate the Creative and Cultural Industries’ so it was very apt having a young experienced and local artist to talk through the route of education they choose in NI.
Kerrie talked about her choice of studying Foundation Studies at University of Ulster as it gave her the opportunity to explore and engage in many areas of Art & Design. This was beneficial as Kerrie was able to try out different areas of Art & Design helping her gauge what area she would prefer to study to Degree Level. The ‘year out’ during the degree course catapulted Kerri into making decisions about the field of work and how she needed to push herself towards getting work as it wasn’t going to land on her lap. Kerri won the opportunity to create ‘quirky’ illustrative designs to advertise the UU Art degree shows which were on show on Billboards around Belfast city centre.
Kerrie Mc Neill’s style of vibrant and colourful illustrations was of immediate appeal to our pupils who engaged on a workshop on school ipad’s. Kerrie set the group a task and engaged with all sharing apps and discussing techniques. It was of immense enjoyment for the pupils who revelled in learning new techniques which will be developed in the pupil’s own portfolio of exam work. A special word of thanks came from Amber in yr14 to acknowledge the benefit each pupil got from such an approachable and talented NI craftsperson.
The Sullivan Creative Arts Department (SCA) would like to acknowledge our thanks to our invited guest who made the link with the ‘Creative and Cultural Industries’ so enriching for our pupils.
